Data sharing amongst several users (i.e. devices) involves publishing a collection of resources by each user device or system, referred to as a source system, such that other user devices, referred to as target systems, can be aware of and access the resources.
Such publishing enables several copies of the same resource to be known by the users. The latter can then seamlessly switch between hosting devices and/or between networks comprising these devices, i.e. change hosting device or network without losing access to the required resource.
For example, this is implemented in peer-to-peer (P2P) systems.
In public P2P systems, several versions or copies of the same resource, generally a digital file such as an audio or video file, may have been created and disseminated through the P2P network. When a user intends to access this resource, an appropriate search (by name criterion for example) provides a list of references to the user, each reference being associated with a version or copy of the resource.
The list may give a description of the resource and may be sorted by ordering according to one or several criteria, for example the number of seeders or the number of leechers. The number of seeders is in particular representative of an accessibility rating: the more seeders there are, the greater the availability of the digital file on the network.
Moreover, each reference of the list may correspond to a plurality of copies of the same digital file hosted in numerous apparatuses of the P2P network.
When accessing the P2P network to obtain a copy of the resource, the user device uses the provided references to select a copy and then access one or more hosting apparatuses.
However, data sharing is not limited to P2P systems. Data sharing for a resource may for example also be provided in local or private networks.
In such a case, local or private references specific to the local or private network are used, that cannot be resolved by a user external to the network, as is possible for global references.
Depending for example on the nature of networks, the nature of connections or relationships between devices and the nature of the networked apparatuses, there may be many references associated with the same resource, but which have different meanings for different user devices.
In addition, a resource that is accessed by a user device and is thus copied locally may be published and thus greatly increases the number of references to the resource. Since this number increases, the storage memory required for any device receiving the list of references increases. The processing to identify a relevant reference that gives actual access to the resource also increases correspondingly.
There is therefore a need to improve management of such references to access the resources.